


A Brush of the Hands

by holyfudgemonkeys (erraticallyinspired)



Series: Gobmas 2020 [1]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: (it's minor), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, Major Character Injury, Romantic Soulmates, Set sometime before Fear Response, Soulmates, Strangers to Lovers, early season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27839869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erraticallyinspired/pseuds/holyfudgemonkeys
Summary: In a world where you recognize your soulmate at the first touch, neither Malcolm nor JT are prepared to find theirs in each other.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel, Past Gil Arroyo/Jessica Whitly
Series: Gobmas 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037802
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	A Brush of the Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evaagna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evaagna/gifts).



> It's the first day of Gobmas!!! I hope you enjoy it, Eva! I had a loooot of fun writing a soulmate AU for these two and even more writing it for one of my friends <3<3<3<3

The most important part about meeting your soulmate is the first touch. That touch triggers the shift, that lets you know that you are soulmates, that you’re meant to complement each other in ways no one else could. 

It _has_ to be a bare touch. Skin to skin. Clothing or coverings of any kind don’t allow the connection to set in, as far as anyone knows. There’s no obvious reason for it. It just doesn’t work that way. Children routinely find themselves matched before they really understand what it means, and they have it the easiest, unreserved and open to change as they are. 

Sometimes Malcolm Bright wishes he’d found his soulmate as a child. Because touch? Bare or otherwise? Not something anyone of any age wanted to initiate with him after that night in ‘98. People went out of their way to _not_ make contact with him, giving him a wide berth in the halls and isolating him wherever he tried to sit in the lunchroom. 

Eventually… Malcolm did the same. He didn’t want to know if any of his tormentors were actually his match. He didn’t want to see the horror overcome their faces as it set in. He didn’t want the rejection. 

Besides, it’s possible to live without a soulmate. His mother certainly had for the longest time, even marrying his father who proved charming enough to fall in love with without the connection most yearned for. It’s not a guarantee, after all, though the majority found theirs at some point in their lives. Malcolm could content himself with his job, with his family, with his Sunshine. 

Right?

The first time Malcolm meets Gil’s team, he’s wearing gloves. They’re at a crime scene, and just about everyone is, so he doesn’t stand out at all. 

Not that either of the detectives are raring to touch him. Even without knowing just who he is, he puts them off. 

Malcolm is used to this. 

Once they find out, they’re especially not trying. Well. JT isn’t. Edrisa, Malcolm is convinced, would love to give him a quick poke and see if they’re a pair, but he has the feeling she knows just as well as he does they likely aren’t. Dani _did_ touch him that night at the Berkhead house. It was an accident born of panic, and as soon as it registered, the two of them made eye contact and waited.

But there was nothing. Both of them were relieved, in some ways. (And Malcolm is more than aware that finding out that early, when he was that new, would have been a _nightmare_.)

Life goes on. Malcolm joins the team for cases. No one touches him except Gil. He’s okay with that, doesn’t even like to be touched through clothes let alone without them. He wears long sleeves and tight collars and generally only touches a handful of people he trusts — a list that hasn’t changed in over ten years. 

He _does_ start to trust Dani and JT and Edrisa. Habits, though, are hard to break. 

Of course, life isn’t easy on Malcolm Bright. 

He meets his soulmate in the middle of a case. Or, to be more specific, he touches his soulmate skin to skin for the first time in the middle of a case. There’s nothing grand about it. No life-saving gestures. No handshakes and sudden realizations. 

No cheers of joy.

Just Malcolm and JT staring at each other, shell-shocked in the hall leading off of the main crime scene. All JT did was brush past him. Their hands grazed. The smallest amount of bare skin against bare skin was all it took. 

Gil finds them minutes later, a look of mild annoyance on his face. “I’ve been waiting for you two to show back up.” Then, of course, he gets a good look at them and pieces it together like the smart cop he is. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Malcolm says quietly, “shit.” 

Although Dani seems to be thawing towards him, JT is… far from his biggest fan. 

Said man shakes his head. “We can figure this out later.” There’s the beginnings of a grimace on his face.

(At least, that’s all Malcolm can see.)

“Not if the bond doesn’t settle,” Gil says firmly. 

Because bonds aren’t always immediate. With children, they often are. With adults, sometimes they fight it a little, intentionally or not. The only way to tell is with distance. If soulmates can be apart from each other for periods of time without pain, the bond is settled. 

JT takes a step towards Gil.

Malcolm winces and quickly follows. 

With a deepening frown, Gil shakes his head. “That’s it, the two of you go home. Don’t come back until you can be in different rooms again.”

“But —” Malcolm barely gets the word out before he’s on the end of a look. The rest of his protest fades, because Gil is right. 

It isn’t a good idea for unsettled bonds to be in the field. Their minds won’t be on the case. They won’t have any choice but to work next to each other, regardless of where their skills are needed, and if something goes wrong? They’ll be stuck at the hip. 

They’d be a liability. 

Dani’s brows shoot up as the two of them walk side by side out of the scene. 

(Malcolm’s pretty sure he hears an incredulous _what?_ behind him on the way out.)

They get into JT’s car.

“What’s your address, man?” 

It’s the second thing JT’s said to him since they touched, and neither time, he’s actually looked at Malcolm.

Malcolm rattles off the address for the loft. In the back of his mind, he realizes JT didn’t offer his own place, because it’s his. JT’s space. 

And he probably doesn’t trust Malcolm enough to bring him there. 

Maybe he is his mother’s son after all. The first thing Malcolm does as soon as they’re in the loft is pull out the whiskey and two tumblers. “On the rocks? Or neat?”

JT snorts. “Look, if I’m doing this, it’s with a clear head.”

“Okay, then how about a game of twenty-one questions?” Quietly, Malcolm puts it all away. He’s not going to be the only one drinking, nor is he going to make an even worse impression on his soulmate than he already has in their short time working together.

“Sure,” JT says slowly. He’s not sitting. He’s standing a good distance away from Malcolm, who gets two bottles of water out of the fridge and sits down at the far end of the island, trying to give him room. 

Malcolm cracks his open and clears his throat. “I’ll go first — what does it stand for?” JT gives him a flat look. “Next.”

Of course. Maybe Malcolm should have started with something different, something that didn’t already have a bit of a history between the two of them. Maybe he shouldn’t have been as abrasive as he was in the beginning, either. 

Too late to do anything about it. (Too hard to undo years of learned behavior in a moment.)

“Then how did you meet Gil?” That should be easy enough, right? Malcolm takes a sip and looks up at him expectantly. 

JT’s gaze lingers on him for a moment. “I was working the beat. I’m not sure why, but Gil sought me out. Said he wanted me on his team. That was that.” He stops then, but there’s a slight twitch in his jaw that gives away the words he’s holding in.

“Go ahead. Ask. I’m an open book.”

“Written in hieroglyphics, maybe,” JT says with a snort. “Fine, I’ll bite. Gil told us about the night you met. What he didn’t explain is why he stuck around. We’ve worked with kids before, and he’s never visited any of them after the fact.”

Malcolm’s asked himself that many times. In his heart, he knows that it was the bond they forged the moment Malcolm warned him of what was in front of him. It wasn’t a soulbond, obviously, but the both of them certainly took it seriously. He saved Gil’s life. 

So Gil set out to save his. 

“I think…” Malcolm takes a deep breath. “I think it started as a form of obligation. There were so many factors, but somewhere along the line, he really did become one of the most important people in my life. I _know_ Gil feels the same.”

Enough so that he stuck around even after the failed start that was his and Malcolm’s mother’s relationship. 

Not that Malcolm is supposed to know about that. 

He clears his throat and gives JT a wane smile. “Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee.” Finally, JT takes a seat. “You?”

“Also coffee,” Malcolm says, “with lots of sugar. Favorite food?”

Evidently, knowing each other’s favorite candy bar isn’t the key to the settling of their bond. The fifth time JT tries to walk down the steps of the loft, Malcolm standing with both hands clutching the edge of the island, only for the two of them to hiss at the pang of pain that follows, is too much. 

“That’s it,” JT says, frustrated. “Look, man, I’m sorry, but I don’t care what kind of pie you like.”

“Blueberry,” Malcolm cuts in. His face is worn. He’s so fucking tired of this, too. 

“I’m not sitting around here any longer. You coming?”

Malcolm grabs his suit jacket and pulls his shoes back on. 

Of course, Gil isn’t so easily convinced.

“I thought I told you two to go home,” he says as soon as he sees them in the precinct.

Malcolm gives him a half-hearted smile. “Would you believe me if I said we settled it?”

Gil doesn’t even hesitate. “Absolutely not.” 

“C’mon, Gil,” JT says, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “I’m not sure you’ll have a profiler if we have to spend any more time alone.”

Sighing, Gil rubs at his temple. “Fine. You two watch each other’s backs, and if I see _any_ hint of this blowing up in my face, you won’t get another chance.” He turns towards where Dani is standing half a precinct away, watching the three of them with one eyebrow cocked. “Oh, and JT? I’m not so sure I’d put my money on you making it out on top,” he jokes.

For the first time, Malcolm and JT share a moment of success, the two of them turning to each other subconsciously. 

It’s fleeting. 

It doesn’t return, not even when their killer is handcuffed in the back of a squad car, his face bleeding from superficial scrapes all along the left side. 

It doesn’t return, because Malcolm is sitting in the back of an ambulance, wincing as a paramedic finishes wrapping up the deep graze on the side of his head. At least it's on the shorter section of his hair, he thinks as he tries to ignore the throbbing. He’ll be fine. It’ll heal. His hair will grow back. 

JT will stop looking at him like he trampled all over his favorite toy. Maybe. 

Gil claps his detective on the shoulder. He looks like he wants to say something, but in the end, he pushes him towards Malcolm. “I’ll see you two in a few days. And I mean it — I don’t want to see _either_ of you for at least three.”

And honestly? Malcolm’s not sure he’ll be jumping to go in. (At least not tomorrow.) His head is killing him. He stumbles down to the street.

A warm hand steadies him. It’s JT, and he uses it to guide Malcolm back to his car in silence. 

It persists throughout the short drive back to the loft. Through the awkward way they move up the stairs together, JT hovering behind him ready to catch him if he falls. 

The closing of the door breaks it. 

JT eases him down onto the couch. “Look, I have to know. Did you do it because we’re…?”

Did he? Did Malcolm really push him out of the way of a gunshot because of their soulbond? He contemplates it for a split second. “Was our soulbond the only reason you tackled him?” Although he wants to ask it jokingly, the words come out much too seriously, and he finds he does need to know. 

The couch dips as JT drops down next to him. He sighs and runs a hand over his buzzed hair. “...nah, man.”

Malcolm smiles at him, lopsided. “Then you have your answer.” Because it was nothing more than instinct. Instinct and respect and teamwork, and Malcolm would do it again, soulbond or no.

“Why?” 

Maybe it’s because JT looks lost or maybe it’s the head wound, but Malcolm leans against his side. “I have so much respect for Gil,” he says softly, putting a hand on JT’s leg to stop him from interrupting. “I know I’m not good at listening or following directions. I know you probably see Gil get frustrated with me and wonder why I stick around if I don’t want to play by the rules.”

JT shifts. “I’m not big on being profiled.”

Malcolm laughs. “I know, but this is important. I trust Gil, but more than that? I respect him. He didn’t have to stick around when he did. He didn’t have to listen to me in the first place. He showed me that sometimes good does prevail.” His smile drops. “Did you know Gil found his soulmate?”

“Jackie, right? I met her a few times.” JT wraps an arm around him, seemingly without noticing. 

“Nope. My mother.” Malcolm can feel him stiffen in shock at that. “Yeah, they didn’t actually touch until a few years after my father’s arrest, can you believe that? They tried to hide it, but it’s not hard to tell when people first bond. They get all… starry-eyed.”

“So? What happened?” Slowly, the tension melts out of his frame. 

“I’m not sure,” Malcolm admits. “All I know is that it had something to do with me. My guess is they decided to put me first, and they just never found their way back together. So, not only did Gil give me the stability I desperately needed, he also ignored a soulbond because he thought it was the right thing to do. I have immense respect for him and what he does, even if I think he’s wasting time not going back to her.”

JT nods lightly. “I get that, but how is it relevant?”

“Because Gil chose you.” Malcolm tilts his head up and catches JT’s eyes. “I respect Gil’s job and his judgement. It may not seem like it, but I respect you, too, Jeffery Thomas.”

JT’s body shakes against him as he chuckles. “Not even close.” He shakes his head then, sobers up. “I guess you’re not so bad if Gil chose you, too.”

That night, they sleep next to each other in Malcolm’s bed, barely touching but unwilling to test the bounds of their restless bond. 

In the morning, though… Malcolm stumbles to the bathroom with a full bladder and only realizes he’s managed to move further than he’s been able to for the last day once he walks out and finds JT staring at him dumbly.

JT takes an experimental step back. “Did we just…?”

Malcolm copies him and marvels at how it doesn’t hurt. “We just did.” He beams at him, wincing as his head throbs again. 

(Gil still doesn’t let them come back into work for another two days.)


End file.
